In our first exploration of God’s plan for his people we heard how
God called Abraham to leave his home and take his family to settle in a
land that he would be shown. We heard how God promised Abraham that he
would be the founder of a great nation and that his descendents would live
in this land. Last week we picked up the story at the point where Abraham’s
descendents were living not in that land but in Egypt and far from possessing
the land they were slaves of the Egyptians. Moses was called by God to
lead the people out of Egypt back towards the Promised Land. The Hebrews
went into the desert as an unruly bunch of individuals, unprepared to take
any responsibility themselves, ill equipped for the task ahead and only
too ready to grumble at every difficulty they encountered.

Now we pick up the story a generation later when they had been transformed
by their wilderness experience. Although they viewed themselves principally
as members of one of the twelve tribes they were on the way to becoming
a nation. They were united by their adherence to a code of behaviour which
was summed up in the ten commandments and more importantly, by their growing
understanding of the nature of God. Their religious beliefs were strong
and quite different from the beliefs of the Egyptians whom they had left
behind and the Canaanites they were heading towards. First and foremost
they understood that God is one God, the creator of the earth and everything
on it. Secondly they saw that God is purposeful not capricious, so when
they saw some sort of effect such as famine or defeat in battle they looked
for a cause which was related to their own behaviour in so far as it measured
up to God’s standards. Thirdly they saw God as a living God, ever present
and involved in every aspect of life so they made little distinction between
their religious life and their everyday life.

Here they were then, on the brink of a land “flowing with milk and honey”
and unsurprisingly it was already inhabited by groups who were non too
willing to stand aside and let the Israelites take over. How did they come
to take possession of the land? Well probably not by launching a series
of all out attacks and then dividing up the spoils between the various
tribes as the book of Joshua would suggest. It is likely that there was
a much messier, more piecemeal approach with different tribes moving in
at different times. Certainly there would have been some battles but also
more peaceful encroachment, some adhoc alliances with groups already living
there and the whole taking place over an extended period of time, rather
as our own land was taken over by Angles, Saxons and Vikings with varying
degrees of completeness. When the history came to be written down the oral
traditions of the different tribes would be collated and tidied up to give
a simplified account which gave the people a common history and identity.
Throughout this period of settlement and consolidation the leadership rested
with a series of Judges, strong charismatic individuals, who emerged as
leaders by common consent. The office of judge was not hereditary or elected
and interestingly not restricted to men. As time went on it became clear
that this system of tribal confederacy was no match for the stronger nations
surrounding the fledgling state and so the people began to call for a king
so they could be “like the other nations”.

As Abraham and Moses were chosen by God to fulfil his purposes so the
first of Israel’s kings Saul was chosen and anointed. Saul’s reign was
very much a transitional period; it was David the second king who really
instituted the monarchy as we would understand it with the beginnings of
a civil service and the centralising of power and it was his son Solomon
who made Israel a player on the world stage. However, it was Solomon’s
excesses with his taxes and his conscription of labour that led to the
break-up of the kingdom with ten tribes breaking away after his death to
become the state of Israel and just two tribes, Judah and Benjamin remaining
loyal to Solomon’s son.

Returning to David for a moment, we have another one of God’s promises
to an individual. This time David is promised that his house and kingdom
will be made sure forever. God says, “Your throne will be established forever”.
Just a couple of generations later, though, the kingdom ruled by David’s
heirs was very much the smaller, weaker and less influential of the twin
kingdoms and it remained this way. However the dynasty remained strong
and continued to rule over little Judah while the more powerful northern
neighbour Israel had a very unstable political history with a series of
army coups bringing first one then another faction to power. Although more
powerful, Israel was the first to fall with the Assyrians moving in and
carrying the people off to exile. Judah survived for a further hundred
years or so before succumbing, this time to the Babylonians.

The promise to David was not forgotten though and over the years it
began to be understood in a different light. The prophets began to talk
of a Messiah, an anointed one, who would come and restore the nation to
its rightful place in the scheme of things. This Messiah would come from
the lineage of David and thus fulfil the promise or covenant made with
David. We of course believe that this did indeed come to pass and that
in Jesus we have had the promised Messiah. In showing their readers that
Jesus was the one sent from God Luke and Matthew trace his line back through
Joseph to David, Abraham and beyond. In Jesus we have our King but his
kingdom, on earth at any rate, is something that we are still working towards.

God’s promise has been renewed at different times and in different
ways with groups of people and with individuals but in essence it remains
the same. God created us to be his people and he has remained with us through
bad times and good. His promise is to be involved with us and to bring
us back to him when we have sinned and he has remained faithful to us despite
our unfaithfulness to him. Through Jesus, God manifested his promise of
salvation to all mankind. This brings us back full circle. In Noah God
first made his covenant with all mankind that never again would there be
total destruction. The promise was focused on a nation then on the line
of an individual, David and now through the sacrifice of Jesus, an individual,
the promise is made to all mankind once again.